Like roots in the soil

Indie developers are the ones striving for new ideas and exciting gameplay concepts nowadays, given the fact that most big studios prefer to concentrate on their long-running franchises instead. On the other hand, gamers are always looking for new ideas as well, because it can get quite boring to play with the same toys over and over again, even if the stories and the settings are different.

Like roots in the soil is a simple adventure game that’s more of a walking simulator than anything else, in which your only input is to move the camera around to get a different perspective of the characters. Although it actually sounds very boring, the developers have managed to make the experience extremely engaging, as well as very atmospheric.

In short, there are two characters following the same path through a city, except that they do it at different times. Hence, one of them is in a relatively normal town, while the other is in a destroyed version of it, probably post-apocalyptic. By simply moving the mouse around you can get glimpses of both versions in real-time, which is a very neat technical gimmick.

There doesn’t seem to be any dialog or actual missions to undertake, but the atmosphere is definitely engaging. You can read some interesting quotations along the way, as well as try to understand more about the characters, but the main focus is on the atmosphere as a whole. Hence, seeing the destroyed city and watching the two characters stroll through their own version of reality.

As mentioned before, the graphics are not revolutionary from a technical point of view, but the level design is very nicely done, and the colors are engaging as well. The soundtrack playing in the background helps a lot with the atmosphere, especially if you are a fan of the ambient genre. As far as the controls are concerned, the mouse look is as straightforward as it gets, so there are no issues in this regard either.

Like roots in the soil is more of a tech demo at this point, especially since it features only a few minutes of gameplay. However, the idea could evolve into a proper game with enough effort from the developers, and we can only hope they do so in the future.